Bristol Spaceplanes Ascender (1/72 scale)

[Oceaneer99]

Bristol Spaceplanes Ascender

I just received a drawing of the Bristol Spaceplanes Ascender from the manufacturer.  It looks like a small space shuttle, with a large rocket engine and two turbojet engines (for use in the atmosphere).  I'll be doing some planning for a model of this.

Garet
Seattle, WA

[lastvautour]

Garet, I saw your pictures. The ship looks great. I am guessing somewhere around 1/72 scale?? I saw a program on Discovery channel about the Ascender or a ship that looks just like her. They figure a mere $200,000.00 will get you into sub orbital altitude for a few minutes.

[Oceaneer99]

Thanks, Lou.  It was late, so I just uploaded the pictures.  I added the comments today.  It is 1/72 scale, as you guessed.  Surprisingly, it is not a large aircraft.  A bit bigger than a P-40, but not twice the size.



The gallery is at:

http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/Gallery/thumbnails.php?album=40

This is the first time I've built a model with this sort of full delta wing.  I decided to make the wing in once piece, including the root.  This left a big piece cut out of the fuselage.

Garet

[lastvautour]

The photos of the cabin/windscreen area are starting to show off the sleek lines of the Bristol Spaceplanes Ascender. May I suggest you start a new topic for each of your creations and keep the current update for general information. Just a thought.

[Oceaneer99]

Lou,

Good idea on splitting the topics.  You can see I've already followed your advice.

Here is the latest photo of the front of the Ascender:



I see Rutan released some details of his bigger version of Space Ship One yesterday.

Garet

[lastvautour]

The other suborbital tourism spaceship I saw was similar to this one.

http://www.personalspaceflight.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/eads1.jpg

It was featured on the discovery channel and somewhat bigger than the Ascender.. Yours looks great. I do not have any time slots left to start anything new just now.

[Oceaneer99]

Lou,

I made a note to check on the EADS spaceplane a while back.  I happened to get a magazine that had an article on the Ascender, and Bristol Spaceplanes were very quick sending me a drawing, so that's how I ended up with the Ascender.

Both use a similar principle: take off using turbofan jet engines, climb to altitude, use a rocket engine to go to space, re-enter, and use jet engines for landing.

I did a little bit of carving of the tail end of the fuselage -- it somehow becomes completely circular there.  It took some fudging, but I think it is getting close now.  I'm basing this on a somewhat unclear photo of a model at a trade show and a frame from a video showing an earlier version of the Ascender.

I have some illustrations of the new version of Scale Composites Space Ship Two.  I found a side view, but no top or front views.  I tried to get information from them about their Global Flyer a few years back, but was not successful.

There is a full-sized mockup of Space Ship One at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.  It is owned by Paul Allen.  For that matter, the full-sized mockup of the Scaled Composites Voyager (Jeanna Yeager's mockup) is on display at Seatac Airport.  The originals of both are at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Garet

[davetunison]

The Ascender project is looking good. Is it made from poplar?

I noticed that you cut with a scroll saw. Do you have trouble keeping the saw blade square to the sides while cutting? Even with the heavier bandsaw blade, I have trouble with that sometimes, usually on harder woods.

[Oceaneer99]

Dave,

The fuselage is poplar, but the wing is boxwood.  A woodworking friend warned me that there are a whole bunch of species commonly called "poplar" in the wood shop.  This poplar has been carving fine, though I did touch up the sharpening on my tools to get a really clean cut.

As to the scroll sawing, I use special "thick wood" 5-inch unpinned scroll saw blades which work really well up to 2" in pine, spruce, etc.  I have tried 3/4" hardwood, but nothing thicker.  They are made by Olsen, and I buy them through Rockler Woodworking because there is a store a few miles from me, but they also do mail-order.  There is a small mail order place that sells a huge variety of scroll saw blades in the US; their prices are even more reasonable.  I'll have to look up their name again.  One of the fellows who works at Rockler teaches a scroll saw class, so he always gives me pointers when I go in to buy blades.  He did say that, particularly with the thinner blades, they wear out and break with about 20 minutes of use.  Also, he said to tension until the plucked blade makes a C above middle C note, and to never set the variable speed above 60%, because the blade heats too much beyond that.  He also recommended precision ground teeth for very delicate work on thin pieces.  I haven't tried them yet, since I always have to sand to airfoil or streamline anyway.

When I cut out the large (2 inch) stack of pine for the 1/350 PT-boats, I noticed that the blades curved a bit on some of the smaller pieces, so that they aren't all the same width through the stack.  I think the blade was getting dull.

I have even cut pieces of bandsaw blades to fit my scroll saw.  I used this to cut finger joints in a 2x10 we were using for a raised-bed planter.  These blades tend to wander a bit in the scroll saw, though, and are too coarse for cutting out parts to outline.

Garet

[lastvautour]

Any progress?

[Oceaneer99]

Thanks for checking on me, but, sorry, I haven't done anything other than round the fuselage off and putty all over.  I need to make engines next.

Garet

[lastvautour]

Any report from the engine manufacture. You know these guys can be as bad as munitions (torpedo) contractors.

[Oceaneer99]

Sorry, Lou, no progress on the engines yet, though I did do some putty and sanding of the fuselage a while back.  As to the PT boat torpedo tubes, I think they are ready for primer, and given that the weather here right now is ideal for painting, I should make a note to get those done!  My other nearly complete project is the PRU Spitfire, which is painted with the base color and is awaiting me to draw up the decals and to paint the canopy.

As you probably saw on my flickr page, my 1:1 children's kayak is coming along.  It really reminds me of a giant stick-and-tissue model airplane!

Garet

[lastvautour]

1:1 scale is also good. I saw a home built Sirocco being assembled in a hangar I worked in. It was neat. Just a thought, Maybe you could sub contract to me or Ray or Kenny to do the engines and see if the assembly would work out. Detailed drawings would be a must.

[lastvautour]

Where did you get your drawings Garet? I found some on line but they do not appear to be the once you show in your album.

Lou